“Capital— he is a fine fat fellow. And the little ginger-colored one?”
Marianne traced its back with a tentative finger. “It is so little and forlorn— Ophelia, do you think?”
He picked it up gently and, turning it over, made a cursory examination. “Yes, it is a little maid. Ophelia will serve very well.”
“Poor little one,” Marianne sighed as she gazed at the kitten. It was sniffing the air blindly, attempting to find the source of the scent of milk. “Will she survive, do you think?”
“If her brother can be persuaded to share, there is no reason why she should not.”
She frowned a moment, then said, “Annie, fetch a pair of gloves for me—and be sure they are kid, not silk. I have an idea,” she said, as the maid went off to do her mistress’s bidding. “I do not know if it will serve, but I can at least try. They are so sweet and innocent, are they not?”
The doctor shook his head ruefully. “Wait until they are old enough to wreak havoc on your sewing basket. Then I shall ask you.”
Marianne dipped a finger in the milk and brushed it across the newly christened Ophelia’s mouth. A tiny pink tongue emerged, and the kitten licked eagerly.
“Yes,” the doctor chuckled, “she will do quite well.”
He put his own finger into the milk and began to feed the third kitten. Marianne looked up and caught him smiling at her, and felt the heat rise to her cheeks. Somehow, the kittens’ nursing motions made the task of feeding seem an altogether more intimate endeavor. She looked down quickly and remained intent on her task, until Annie entered again with a pair of gloves.
“Thank you, Annie,” she murmured. “Will you hand me my sewing basket now?”
Annie watched, horrified, as Marianne tied off two fingers and poked the end of each of the remaining three with a large darning needle. “Oh, madam!” she protested. “Have you gone and ruined your fine gloves for these little gluttons? Surely a pair of old Martin’s work gloves would have done as well.”
Abandoned for a moment while Marianne pursued her task, the kittens mewed reproachfully. “Tyrants! Hush now. They have delicate little mouths, you see, Annie,” she said softly. “They will do far better if they do not have to fight to get a few drops of milk. They would wear themselves out trying to suck through canvas.”
She picked up the saucer of milk and carefully poured it into the glove. Then she arranged it among the kittens, so each had its own finger. At first, they did not seem to understand what they must do. “Oh, dear,” she whispered. “Perhaps I was wrong. But I had thought— “
“Half a moment,” Dr. Venables interrupted. He took one of the milk-filled fingers, placed it firmly against Falstaff’s mouth, and pressed. A stream of milk splashed in its face. The kitten looked startled, but at once licked the milk off its face and began to search for more. Before long, it was sucking milk under its own power. The doctor repeated this operation with each of the others. Only Ophelia still had difficulty. “Well,” he said after a moment, “some learn more slowly than others.”
“I shall keep trying,” she said. “How often ought they to be fed?”
“Oh, no more than six or seven times a day, I imagine.”
“Six or seven— ?” she gasped.
“Indeed,” he returned with a nod. “And very good practice you will find it for when you have a babe of your own demanding his dinner.”
“Her dinner, if you please!” Marianne corrected with asperity.
“Ah! Are you convinced of such a thing then?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her. “I hope you may not be disappointed.”
As Marianne returned his gaze, she thought she detected some puzzlement therein, and perhaps even a hint of reproof. “I shall not be disappointed, I assure you, in any healthy child. It is just that I have longed so for a daughter, and Old Maggie has assured me— “
“Ah!” the doctor broke in. “Old Maggie, is it then? You may be assured indeed, for I have not heard that her predictions have ever gone amiss.
Marianne realized that now, when Maggie’s name had obtruded into the conversation, was the very time to inform him of her decision. She took a deep breath. “I hope you may be right. She told me so this very morning, when I discovered her in my garden snipping herbs as bold as you please.”
“You must not mind Maggie’s odd ways,” Venables began.
“Indeed, I do not,” Marianne said in a rush. “She is a redoubtable woman, and I have asked her to attend me when my time comes.”
A mere pulse beat or two might have passed before the doctor replied, “You are fortunate in your choice, I am sure. I have heard naught but good of her skills as a healer and midwife.” He smiled at her then. “Do not think I will be offended, Mrs. Gardiner. Most women, I am sure, are more comfortable with one of their own at hand, when their time comes.”
Marianne felt a rush of relief at these words, for he did not appear to have taken her decision amiss. Though their acquaintance had been brief and, for the most part, unsettling, she would not like to offend this good man. She glanced down at the kittens. They were sleeping peacefully, nestled in their basket like a trio of variegated pussy willows. When she looked up again, the doctor was smiling at her still.
Chapter Seven
As he drove home that afternoon, Dr. Venables found his mind returning again and again to his call at Rosewood Cottage. That was not entirely unexpected, however. He had not stopped thinking of its mistress since he first encountered her in the stone circle. He had found his way to that enchanted place immediately on his return from Edinburgh. The legends of virgins turned to stone might terrify the villagers into forsaking its environs, but he found the circle peaceful, and always left it with a lighter heart and a renewed sense of hope. Now that sense of hope had become personified.
The image of Mrs. Glencoe, crowned with flowers, had possessed him ever since he first spied her. Most women would have looked foolish thus arrayed, but she did not. She looked utterly natural, as if she were one of the fairy folk believed to inhabit the region.
It was little wonder that he had not immediately noticed her widow’s weeds. Her face invited the eye like a cameo framed in silk. Her movements were liquid, her form gently feminine. She was undeniably beautiful, achingly beautiful. But there was an intriguing mystery about her as well, which held his mind in thrall.
To begin with, he was almost certain he remembered something of her from his previous life in the ton. Her face and manner, at any rate. Her family name would doubtless come in time, whether he wished it or not. For all his efforts, he was still unable to purge the myriad memories of his former life in that glittering superficial circle.
Mrs. Glencoe was indeed a cipher. Like him, she seemed to have left that life behind, but what was she doing here at the end of the world? Even if, as rumor held, her husband’s family had cast her off, what of her own family and acquaintance? Could she possibly be as entirely alone as appearances suggested? He shook his head thoughtfully. Something was not right here.
He pulled to the side of the road for a moment, to allow a cart to pass the other way. Caught up in his analysis of his new acquaintance, he almost failed to return the farmer’s greeting. They exchanged a few civil words, but he could scarce have reported what they were, so distracted was he.
Venables had not entered Rosewood Cottage intending to examine it for clues to the owner’s life; nonetheless, he had done so, and been disconcerted to find not the slightest hint of Mrs. Glencoe’s past. There seemed to be no mementos, no memorabilia. No miniature of the husband in evidence. No regimental sword or sash. Not even a twist of his hair in some frame or other, and she wore no locket. Though he saw no particular value in such displays, he knew about widows. He had often marked how, love or no, they raised what monuments they might as a way of affirming their station, despite the dusty imprint of death.
And just as there were no clues to the departed Captain Glencoe— so local gossip held his rank— neither were there signs
by which one might read his widow. Venables knew the house had been purchased largely furnished, and remembered enough of the place to determine which pieces were the additions of the new owner. A few chairs, some framed lithographs of country scenes. There were books, but he had been unable to scan their titles. In short, anyone might live there.
The only thing which struck him as out of the ordinary were the several vases, overflowing with haphazard arrangements of bright flowers. Their transition from the garden to the drawing room had not transformed them into rigid arrangements, as was the custom in most houses.
Venables smiled as he thought of her reaction to his gift. He had been racking his brains trying to settle on a way to make an impression upon her—none of the artifices he had once used among ladies of the ton would do—when he came upon the motherless litter in a corner of the barn. Their little faces appealed to his heart, and he wondered if hers would be touched as well.
He had been entirely uncertain as to what he might expect from her when the basket’s contents were revealed. But he had seen her transform from a staid widow to a delighted girl, almost as if she were a child who had dressed up in her mother’s clothing, then grown tired of the game. It seemed as if the shadow he sensed in her had, for a moment, lifted, and allowed a shaft of sunshine to reach her heart. When he had departed, she was smiling still. Falstaff and Ophelia were curled up on her lap, while the third, an inky little fellow christened Prospero, nestled against her bosom.
Venables knew he had risked being tossed out on his ear for such effrontery, but his instincts had proved correct, and it had turned out well. She had invited him to call whenever he might have the leisure to see how the kittens got on— and that, after all, had been his sole aim.
He had been a little afraid she might view him merely in his official capacity, that their magic moment in the stone circle might, once she understood his role in the community, become nothing more than a relationship of doctor and patient. Her decision to have Maggie attend her when the time came was fortuitous. He was not of such a nature as to resent her preferring another in that capacity, and hopeful that it might allow their acquaintance to be more conventional. She would be far more likely now to see him in light of ... well, a man.
Perhaps the time had come, he mused. Perhaps, after all, Heaven might forgive and allow him to be happy.
* * * *
Alden Venables arrived at his own gate, almost without knowing it. His mind had been so occupied, the landscape had slipped by him, the turns taken automatically.
“Ah, doctor, you are come home then, are you?”
The doctor set his bag in the entry and greeted his housekeeper, Mrs. Maiden. “There’s lamb pie for supper,” she said, wiping her floury hands upon her apron, “but before you eat, you must first turn about and call at the Wallers’.”
“Is something amiss there?” he asked. “All seemed well when I saw them yesterday.”
“Naught but a simple mishap,” she told him. “‘Tis to be hoped the reverend has merely given his ankle a twist, not broken it, as his wife thinks. Mrs. Waller begs you will have a look, and I told her you would.”
He nodded, not unused to the woman’s pledging his time without leave. He was here to serve, after all, not to indulge himself.
“And if you would be so kind,” the woman went on crisply, “take Charlie and George away with you. All day they’ve been wicked enough to make the angels weep, and that’s a fact.”
He sighed and shook his head ruefully. Some of his projects took longer to show progress than others. “What have the little criminals been up to now?” he asked.
“The question is more,” she returned with a long-suffering sigh, “what have they not been up to?”
Alden allowed himself a heartfelt groan. “Ought I to sit down,” he asked, “or do I dare face the tidings standing?”
“I hope I’ve no need to remind you, doctor,” she returned tartly, “ ‘tis you brought the savages here. You must listen to the tales without support.” She took a deep breath and began counting on her fingers.
“First, they terrified Lucy into a fit with a snake, so that she could not help me prepare your supper. Next, they set the dogs to chase a badger through the kitchen, upsetting a tray of tarts I was saving for your tea tomorrow. The dogs then worried themselves to fits over whether to eat the tarts or follow the badger, all the time those boys laughing as if they would break apart. Then the rascals got into the cream as was setting up, ate it all, and did not even have the Christian decency to be sick afterward! I do not suppose I could persuade you to put them to bed with a dose of laudanum?”
“I suggest we hoard it for ourselves, Mrs. Maiden,” he laughed. “And the little newcomers? How do they fare?”
Mrs. Maiden bit her lower lip thoughtfully. “Well enough. They are very quiet, though,” she said. “Too quiet for children, if you ask me. I do not think they said more than ten words between them today. But perhaps that can be laid at the door of those two rapscallions as have plagued me today. I could not blame the dear little girls for being shocked to silence at such naughtiness. Charlie and George, indeed! They ought better to have been called Imp and Scratch!”
“Very likely, my dear Mrs. Maiden,” he agreed. “Indeed you are a paragon to have braved their mischief. Do not fear. I shall take the pair of them along with me to the Wallers’, and you will have some respite. I warn you, however, if those good souls have cause to regret my impetuosity, I must lay the blame at your door.”
“For a few moments’ peace, I will take that risk. And what is more,” she added darkly, “if the two of them should be misplaced somewhere along the road, you would not hear me complain.”
“I thank you for your forbearance, Mrs. Maiden,” he said as he lifted his bag once more. “Anyone else would have sold them to the gypsies.”
“Do not imagine it is my virtue that I have not done so, doctor. There are simply no gypsies to be had!”
* * * *
“Thank you for coming, Dr. Venables.” Mrs. Waller arose as he entered the parlor, where the reverend was resting with his foot well elevated.
“You may reclaim your thanks when you find I have not arrived unaccompanied,” he told her.
“Not another— ?” she began.
“Never fear,” he laughed. “Nothing so dire as another four-legged addition to your household, but Christian charity demands I be forthright. Mrs. Maiden has banished Charlie and George from her sight for the present, so I have sent them off to the barn to assist your Haggerty, until I am finished here.”
Although his wife looked somewhat alarmed, the reverend smiled wanly. “An excellent notion,” he said. “Haggerty will at least have the presence of mind to clap the little demons in irons, should they play at setting the place afire. Tell me, doctor, do you never bring angels home from your travels?”
He shook his head. “Not so often as I would like. You must know it is exceedingly rare for angels to be abandoned to the streets— with imps and injured animals it is otherwise, I fear. I have a pair of little girls, though, who appear angelic enough.”
“So did Charlie and George,” Mrs. Waller reminded him, “before they became used to wholesome meals and your easy ways.”
“That is too true,” he sighed. “Perhaps, however, we can with our combined efforts keep this villainous pair from the noose until they achieve the ripe age of ten.”
“Perhaps,” the reverend allowed, rather tentatively, it seemed to Venables, “but let me tell you here and now, that I draw the line at preparing them for the ministry!”
“Heaven forfend!” Mrs. Waller exclaimed.
“Indeed!” the doctor smiled as he made his way to his patient’s side. “Although my heart forewarns me that the role of sexton might appeal to them enormously.”
“Ringing bells and digging graves!” Mrs. Waller laughed, shaking her head. “I can see it all too clearly. Give us your word you will not inform them such occupations exist!”
“So you have discovered my secret vice, doctor!” He shook his head ruefully as he went on, “No, I must confess it was nothing so daring. It is merely that I did not watch my step, while on my afternoon ramble.”
“It is difficult to always be aware of one’s surroundings,” his wife added with tart good humor, “when one has his nose in a book during that ramble. Doctor, you must warn my husband of the dangers of mixing intellectual and physical pursuits!”
Dr. Venables examined the swollen extremity before him. “I should think,” he commented, “that ample warning had already been issued!”
“And a penalty exacted,” the reverend added, paling as the doctor gently rotated the injured ankle. “How long until I am mended, do you think?”
“That depends on you as much as nature,” Venables told him. “If you rest and allow healing, as little as two weeks. Otherwise, a good deal longer. No bones have been broken, but the muscles and tendons have suffered a good deal. You must stay off it at all accounts. Is there someone you can call upon to assist you in your duties here?”
“I suppose,” the reverend said thoughtfully, “I might request Reverend Burne in Plymouth to send his curate to me. But then I should have to suffer his company— he talks when he should listen. I had rather bear the pain, if you must know.”
The doctor nodded. “Have you a cane?”
“There are several from Uncle Erasmus’s time,” Mrs. Waller said. Then she laughed. “How ironic, Enos, that it should come to this so soon!”
“It is my punishment,” he said ruefully, “for my foolish mockery as a youth.”
Venables looked at him quizzically.
“Yes,” his wife explained, “however serious he now seems, Enos was once quite a scamp. Had you told me as a child I would end by marrying my cousin, I should have called you a base liar! He was ever imitating his elders, when the opportunity arose. Uncle Erasmus caught him at it once, hobbling about on a cane and quoting dire passages from Scripture.”
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